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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDDbE13b37 

































A. 



SLAVEIIOLDING 



MALUM IN SE, 



INVARIABLY SINFUL. 



BY E. R. TYLER. 



: HARTFORD. 

PUBLISHED BY S. S. COWLES, NO. 7 ASYLUM STREET. 



MDCCCXXXIX. 



>0 



J SLAVEHOLDING 



MALUM IN SE 



While the friends of the slave and of human rights are rapidly 
enrolling themselves as members of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society, and participating actively in its noble enterprize, regard- 
ing it as the only effective organization for relieving the country 
of slavery by peaceful measures ; not a few persons of respecta- 
bility and influence, withhold their support, on the ground that 
they cannot conscientiously pronounce all slaveholding to be sin- 
ful, and every slaveholder guilty. They object, not to the mea- 
sures of the Society, which they acknowledge are constitutional, 
but to this sentiment, which is affirmed to be one of its distinctive 
doctrines. Were we doubtful of its truth and practical utility^ 
we should refer these gentlemen to the Constitution of the Amer- 
ican Anti-Slavery Society, which declares the sinfulness of slavery 
in general terms, without asserting the absolute impossibiUty of 
innocently holding a slave in any conceivable case. Can the 
conscientious opponents of slavery as a system, hesitate to co-op- 
erate under such a Constitution with the conscientious opponents 
of all slaveholding ? We choose not, however, to urge their 
co-operation on this ground, it being our firm persuasion, that they 
may yet be convinced of the truth of this (at present) repulsive 
doctrine, and do much, by its recognition and acknowledgement, 
towards rectifying the public sentiment of the nation, and sev- 
ering the chains of slavery. 

To prove that slaveholding is invariably sinful, is, there- 
fore, the object of these pages. 

The design in view demands a definition of slavery, accurately 
distinguishing it from other kinds of servitude, with which it is apt 
to be confounded. False definitions arc the most fruitful source 



and strong support of error respecting the moral character of 
slaveholding. To one who considers slavery and servitude sy- 
nonymous terms, our proposition must appear sufficiently absurd 
to entitle us to public abhorrence and ridicule ; to abhorrence for 
broaching a sentiment so pernicious ; to ridicule for soberly de- 
fending a position so untenable. As however we do not recog- 
nize apprentices, minors and hired servants, as slaves, we are not 
chargeable with the supreme folly of denouncing these relations. 
To another, who includes under the term slavery, all involuntary 
servitude, it is not surprising, that our proposition should seem to 
need some qualification. The services which children, wards 
seamen and others, owe to their parents, guardians and employ- 
ers, may be unwillingly rendered, and yet justly exacted. A third, 
who may confine the word slavery to the single condition of one, 
who is changed, as far as human law can effect it, into a thing, a 
commodity, a mere article of traffic, may find no difficulty in ad- 
mitting the truth of our position, that slaveholding is invariably 
sinful. We thus see the necessity of planting ourselves on the 
true definition of slavery, if we would ascertain and publish cor- 
rect views of its moral nature. This is the more important, since 
learning and talent will still be tasked to prop its tottering repu- 
tation, and repel every assault upon it, by false definitions, artfully 
concealing the worst elements of the system, and introducing, to- 
gether with slavery itself, some innocent kind of servitude, lest the 
withering sentence should go forth : all slaveholding is sinful. 

DEFINITION. 

SLAVERY IS A DEPRIVATION OF PERSONAL OWNERSHIP. 

Enslaving men consists in reducing them to this state, or in 
making them the property of other persons. 

A slave is a person divested of the ownership of himself, and 
conveyed with all his powers of body and mind, to the absolute 
proprietorship of another. 

Slaveholding is detaining one in this condition, or keeping 
him subject to the laws of slavery ; and the detainer is the 
slaveholder. 

There are two slaveholding powers in all countries, where 
slavery exists by law ; the master, and the government or civil 
society. In some states, the master is left at liberty to set his 



slaves free, there being no laws against emancipation ; in others, 
slaves can be legally freed only liy the act of some court. In 
the former case, the government releases the slaves the moment 
the master declares them free ; in the latter case, the government 
may hold them in slavery, after their master has released them. 
No power can constitute or continue a man a slaveholder, with- 
out his. consent, and in defiance of his own act of manumission. 
By saying in good faith to his slaves : I now regard you as men, 
entitled equally with myself, to liberty ; I will never again enforce 
the laws of slavery against you ; I will give you a pass to leave 
the state, if you wish it ; I will make no attempt to recover you, 
if you quit my premises ; I will give you an equivalent for your 
labor, if you remain in my service — he ceases to be a slaveholder, 
though the government may still retain his freedmen in slavery. 
Laws against emancipation cannot prevent his ceasing at once to 
be a slaveholder ; they only prevent the slaves from being legally 
free after he has ceased to hold them. The government is then 
the only holder of the slaves, the only power that retains them in 
slavery ; the only agent responsible for their enslavement. The 
master, indeed, still shares with his fellow citizens in the responsi- 
bilities of the government, if the supreme power vests in the peo- 
ple, and is bound to use his influence against all unjust and unequal 
laws. He is, however, responsible only for his own acts. The 
refusal of the government to second his wishes and efforts, may 
have the effect to retain in slavery those whom he no longer re- 
tains in that condition ; but to this his responsibility does not 
extend. As he neither enslaves them himself, nor sanctions their 
enslavement, he is not a slaveholder. 

A slaveholding government is, therefore, one which authorizes 
individuals to deprive their fellow men of self-ownership ; and 
which may also enact, that persons so deprived, shall suffer the 
deprivation forever, any act of their reputed proprietors to the 
contrary notwithstanding. 

An individual slaveholder, is one, who holds or uses human 
beings as property ; who retains them in this condition ; who sub- 
jects them to the laws of slavery. Artificial persons, as corpora- 
tions, may also hold slaves. But whoever refuses to exercise the 
power of an owner, or to keep others in slavery ; whoever dis- 
claims the right and relinquishes the practice, is not a slave- 
holder, whatever he may have been, and however civil society 



6 

may interfere to nullify his acts. A man can no more be made 
u slaveholder by legislation, without his consent, than by the last 
will and testament of an individual. 

PROOF OF DEFINITION. 

First. The Greeks and Romans describe slavery in nearly 
the same language. 

Aristotle, the greatest of the ancient philosophers, calls a slave 
a " living instrument." See the article on Slavery in the Ameri- 
can Encyclopaedia. As the lower creation is given to man to be 
a mere minister to his pleasure and convenience, a mere instru- 
ment of his good, so, in the view of Aristotle, slaves were held, 
like cattle, as living instruments, as the mere property and ap- 
pendages of their masters. 

In Dr. Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law, (page 429) it is 
said of Roman slaves, that " they could be sold, transfered or 
pawned as goods or personal estate ; for goods they were, and 
as such were they esteemed." 

Secondly. The slave-codes of the United States contain in 
substance the same definition. 

The law of Louisiana, (Stroud, p. 22) declares a slave to be 
one, " who is in the power of a master, to whom he belongs. 
The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and 
his labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any 
thing but what must belong to his master." In South Carolina, 
(Stroud, p. 23) slaves are "deemed, sold, taken, reputed and ad- 
judged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners 
and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, 
to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever." Thus, 
when the design is to define and establish the slaveholder's claim, 
the slave is described to be his absolute property ; not one in the 
power of a master, but one in the power of a master to whom he 
belongs ; not one who owes labor to another, but one who is him- 
self an article of property, to all intents, constructions and pur- 
poses whatsoever. 

Thirdly. The legislative act of any slaveholding country, pro- 
hibiting the holding of man asp)roperty, would be an abolition act; 
yet it would only reinstate in possession of themselves such as 
had previously been deprived of self-ownership. 



Fourthl)' . A title to property invests the owner with that iden- 
tical power over it, which a master possesses over his slave. 

What \vc own as property, we may sell. This a master may 
do with his slaves. To call a system of servitude, which denies 
tiie master the power of scUing his servant, slavery, \s believed to 
be a violation of language — a misapplication of the term. 

What we own as property, we may use without consulting the 
will of that property. This a master may do with his slaves. 
He would scorn the idea of asking them to do his pleasure. 

What we own as property we regard as owing obedience to 
no higher authority than our own. Such is the power of the 
slaveholder. His will is the supreme law of his slaves. To re- 
cognize them as moral beings, accountable to God for their char- 
acters and conduct, is inconsistent with their being the absolute 
property, the mere instruments of another. In all slaveholding 
countries, the master's interests have ever been held to be pri- 
mary and paramoimt ; and the slave's duties to God, to his own 
soul, to his family, to his neighbor, to his country, when in con- 
flict with these interests, have been treated with utter derision. 

What we own as property, we claim and possess in virtue of 
this title solely. So when a slaveholder arrests a fugitive slave, 
he asserts his claim to him, not as his wife, child, apprentice, or 
debtor, nor as a fugitive from justice, but as his property. He 
pretends to no other authority than that which ownership 
imparts. 

Is it not clear then, that slavery is the condition of one, whose 
entire property in himself has been transfered to another ? 

It may at first thought seem an objection to this argument, that 
the owners of brute animals may dispose of their lives, while slave- 
masters are generally prohibited by law, from depriving their 
slaves of life. There is, however, in fact, no restriction on the 
power of the slaveholder other than that which the laws of God 
and conscience impose. Whoever has the arbitrary power of dis- 
posing of all the time of another, of controlling his locomotion, of 
determining the amount of his labor, the quantity and quality of his 
food and clothing, and of fixing every thing which appertains to 
him, can, if he wishes, stop his breath with perfect impunity. It 
is believed that slaveholders have never felt themselves embar- 
rassed or restrained in any country, in the use of their slaves as 
absolute property. Nor should it be overlooked that other kinds 



of property, as brute animals, are protected by law, against wan- 
ton cruelty. Their owners are indeed allowed to dispose of their 
lives ; for this is a legitimate use of such property. To destroy 
an able bodied slave, on the other hand, is not a use ; it is a de- 
struction of property ; and as to disabled and worthless slaves, for- 
bidding the master to destroy them, and requiring him to support 
them, is only taxing his business ; it is like a bonus for the privilege 
of banking, which surely does not sift the chattel-principle from 
bank stock. 

Fifthly. No other definition of slavery embraces all who are 
slaves and no others. 

A definition which excludes any who are entirely bereft of prop- 
erty in themselves, involves the absurdity, that common and cor- 
rect usage forbids our calling him a slave who is held as a com- 
modity, or mere article of property. As persons in this condition 
are confessedly slaves, a definition to be correct, must include them. 
But can it include any others? What others? Not apprentices, not 
wards, not children, not seamen, not soldiers, not subjects, not any 
class of dependents or servants, of whom it may be said, that they 
own themselves. There can be no doubt that a correct defini- 
tion of slavery may be given in different terms from ours, but not 
one of less or greater comprehension. The same definition may 
be expressed in a great variety of forms. A deprivation of per- 
sonal ownership for instance, is the same as an entire deprivation 
of natural liberty. Slavery is a species of absolute despotism. 
A slaveholder is an arbitrary sovereign. And vice versa, a despot 
so absolute that he can dispose, as he pleases, of the time, labor, 
and person of his subject, may act the part of a slaveholder. Since^ 
however, in governments reputedly despotic, the sovereign, though 
not limited by law, is removed at a great distance from his sub- 
jects, is restrained by his fears and interests in the exercise of his 
arbitrary power, and especially, as the theory of all governments 
is the good of the governed, and, in the worst despotisms, the peo- 
ple as a body, are left in the possession of domestic and civil 
rights ; it is only in a qualified sense that they can be called slaves, 
and their sovereigns slaveholders. Were slavery, however, de- 
fined to be the condition of one who is entirely deprived of his 
natural liberty, or subjected to the arbitrary control of another ; 
the truth of the definition would lie in its identity with a depriva- 
tion of personal ownership. A despotism, which leaves its sub- 



9 

jectiii possession of himself, is not of that absolute kind, which is 
denominated slavery in the logical sense of the word. Wiiat 
usage sanctions calling him a slave, who possesses and uses his 
body, and mental powers, for the accomplishment of his own ends? 

That no definition, which is not in substance the same as ours, 
is correct, may appear more conclusively, by reference to the defi- 
nitions, which the apologists for slavery, in certain circumstances, 
or in the abstract, have fabricated. 

We have heard it said that one who owes labor to another is 
a slave. Then children, apprentices, and hired servants, during 
the term of their engagements, are slaves ! 

Some have defined slavery involuntary servitude. Then im- 
pressed seamen, and even reluctant jurors and militia-men, are 
slaves ! 

Some insist that uncompensated servitude is slavery. This is 
indeed a common element of the condition, but it is neither the 
whole of it, nor an essential part of it. Negro slavery is invaria- 
bly uncompe7isated servitude ; because, as the slave cannot legally 
hold property, it is impossible he should receive pay for his servi- 
ces. By allowing him to redeem himself, his master does not 
remunerate him for his labor ; he simply agrees to cease robbing 
him of his wages and of his person, after he shall have completed 
a specified amount of unrequited work. But it follows not that 
slavery cannot exist where wages are paid, nor that the robbery 
of wages, is the whole of slavery. Roman slaves could hold prop- 
erty, and therefore could receive compensation, at the discretion 
of their master ; while in other respects they were subject to his 
irresponsible control and disposal. Nor is it an unfrequent occur- 
rence for freemen to labor without remuneration. An innocent 
man may be condemned to hard labor in a State's prison. Is he, 
therefore, a slave ? A hired man may be defrauded out of his just 
wages. A. may compel B. to go a mile with him, and B. may go 
two miles, without compensation ; and yet not be a slave. A man 
may be forced to serve in the British Navy for twelve dollars a 
month, when he might earn greater wages at home. Is the 
Enghsh tar, therefore, a slave ? No. To create a slave requires 
something more than the robbery of things that perish in the using. 
The man himself must be stolen. 

The subjects of a despotic government are sometimes said to be 
slaves. They may or may not be such. An absolute autocrat 



10 

may divest his subjects of all rights, may make them mere tools, 
mere merchandize; yet in doing so, he would transcend his legiti- 
mate power ; for sovereignty was not confered on him, as a means 
of oppression, but for the defence of the people. The autocracy 
of the slaveholder, on the other hand, looks exclusively to his own 
good. To use his subject as a mere tool, without rights, is no 
abuse ; it is the legitimate use of his supremacy. The most abso- 
lute monarch transcends his legitimate power, w^hen he treats any 
of his subjects as absolute slaves ; while the real slaveholder is 
only acting appropriately. 

Some insist, that State's prison convicts are slaves, because 
they are confined at hard labor, and receive no compensation. 
But who is ignorant that whether their condition is the same as 
that of slaves or not, they have never borne this name ; and that 
the proposition, " all slaveholding is sinful," cannot be supposed to 
refer to them ? 

We find in the Christian Spectator, vol. vi. page 339, the fol- 
lowing definition : 

" Slavery is that artificial relation or civil constitution, by which 
one man is invested with a property in the labor of another, to 
whom, by virtue of that relation, he owes the duties of protection, 
support and government, and who owes him in return, obedience 
and submission." 

Apprentices are here described to be slaves ; for the appren- 
ticeship system ' is a civil constitution, by which one man, the 
master, is invested with a property in the labor of another, the 
apprentice, to whom, by virtue of that relation, the master owes 
the duties of protection, support and government, and who owes 
him in return, obedience and submission !' 

Indeed we know of no definition which excludes any who are 
the property of their masters, or includes any who are not their 
property, which does not involve an absurdity. The well known 
use of the term slavery, forbids its application, in a literal sense, 
to despotic governments, to imprisonment for crime, to the appren- 
ticeship, or to any of those forms of servitude, which reject the 
chattel principle. 

Sixthly. We will only add, that our definition corresponds 
precisely with the ordinary notions and language of men. 

How common is the complaint, that abolitionists demand of our 



11 

southern brethren, tlie surrender, not of their children, apprentices, 
or servants, but of their PiioPEirry. 

This, then, is tiie sense, in which we use, and ought to he under- 
stood to use, the term slavery, when we pronounce the practice, 
invariably sinful. How ungenerous and unjust, it is, in our oppo- 
nents, to deny the truth of this doctrine, and then rest their denial 
solely on definitions, which represent that to be slavery, which is 
not, and which is evidently not contained in our definition ! Many 
of them acknowledge that what we, for no mean reasons, say 
is slavery, and the whole of slavery, is invariably sinful ; and, at 
the same time, hold us up to public reprobation for maintaining 
a doctrine so untenable and uncharitable*. We hope for better 
things. Let them prove that a deprivation of personal owner- 
ship is not the condition of all slaves, and of no others ; or that 
such a deprivation is consistent with morality ; or else let them 
become our friends and coadjutors. That other kinds of servi- 
tude have sometimes been called slavery, by loose writers, and in 
the fervid language of poetry and eloquence, is perfectly compati- 
ble with the above definition, in which is given the ordinary, 
proper, logical sense of fhe word, and not its figurative signifi- 
cations. 

SLAVERY ESSENTIALLY UNLIKE OTHER KINDS OF SERVITUDE. 

A deprivation of self-ownership involves an annihilation of 
man's natural liberty, and a practical denial of his moral nature, 
degrading him from his proper rank to the condition of a thing ; 
and therefore slavery is clearly distinguishable from those condi- 
tions and relations, with which it is often confounded ; some of 
which are innocent, and indispensable to the well being and very 

♦Christian Spectator for 1834, p. 337. Rp.view of Plielps' Lectures on Slavery 
and its Remedy. "This definition of slavery" (tiie same in substance as ours) "is 
a very compendious method of proving that the relation of the slaveholder to his 
slaves, is invariably, simply and inexcusably sinful. Our objection to it, is, that it 
is not a definition of all servitude," (Mr. Phelps intended to define only one species 
of servitude, viz. slavery.) "but only ofthat servitude"' (namely, slavery) "which 
implies sin on the part of the master. It was obviously framed with a view to the 
proposition : — All slaveholdijig is criminal. It was framed by a mind desirous of 
giving to its own positions a lair aspect, at least, of reason and consistency, and 

seeking a basis on which to construct the doctrine of immediate emancipation, a 

doctrine that shall make every master of slaves, in all conceivable circumstances, and 
without any possibility of expknation or defence, an oppressor, a manstealer, a pi- 
rate, an enemy of the human race." Here it is virtually conceded, that if our defi- 
nition is correct, all slaveholding is sinful, and the only objection urged against th« 
definition, is, " that it is not a definition of all servitude .'" 



12 

existence of civilized society. Yet as this confounding of things 
so radically different, is the source of many mistakes respecting 
the moral character of slavery ; it will be useful to set the dis- 
tinction between them in the light of our definition. 

Slavery denies two fundamental,immutable distinctions between 
persons and things ; which is not true of any other kind of servi- 
tude. The distinctions are these. A person has rights ; a thing 
has no rights. A person is a subject of moral obligation ; a thing 
is not. We will r.otice these in their order. 

1. A person has rights; a thing has no rights. Self-ow- 
nership is an original endowment of every human being — the nu- 
cleus around which his other rights gather — the circumference 
within which they all lie. That every man is naturally the 
owner of himself — the proprietor of his body and mind — is one 
of those first tmths, which need no argument to establish, which 
unperverted minds universally acknowledge, which is recognized 
in the phrases, common to all languages, my limbs, my body, my 
mind. This is the only right, or comprehends all the rights, origi- 
nal to man, inherent in human nature, the birth-rights of our race. 
All other rights depend on this for their validity. Among them is 
the right to the term or time of one's life. This is a necessary 
incident to self-ownership ; for it is only in time, that one can em- 
ploy his powers of body and mind for the good of himself and 
others. Man has also a natural right to the proceeds of his labor 
and ingenuity. Tlie inventor of a machine is the natural owner 
of the invention ; it being the product of his industry, time and 
skill. On the same principle, if a person labors in the service of 
another, viz. to raise grain or manufacture cloth, he has a natural 
right to the same proportion of the grain or cloth, or its equivalent, 
which the value of his labor bears to the capital invested by his 
employer. These are some of the natural rights of man. The 
existence of such rights in a state of nature, none will dispute. 
Man may also acquire rights. Whether the entire catalogue can 
be innocently withheld from men, is not our present inquiry, it 
being our sole object to state a distinction between persons and 
things ; for which purpose we bring into view this acknowledged 
attribute of persons in a state of nature, ihe possession of rights. 

What is thus true of persons, is not true of things. As a thing 
is not the owner of itself, but the absolute property of another, it 



13 

has no rights ; its very being is designed for the good of its pro- 
prietor. A wild animal, roaming free in its native forests, is liable, 
without any infringement of right, to be slain by its fellow or by 
the arm of man. It may be said in a qualified, figurative sense, 
that brutes have, in the language of philosophers, imperfect rights ; 
as a right to humane treatment. But though a horse has a right 
to kind usage, it is only when such usage is compatible with the 
interests of man. His owner may whip him, overwork him, and 
even kill him for his own real interests, without infringing any 
right of the horse. This, then, is a wide and striking distinction 
between persons and things. A person has natural rights, and 
may acquire others ; a thing has no rights cither natural or acqui- 
red ; at least none which are not secondary to the interests of 
man, and hence improperly denominated rights. As the whole 
lower creation is a gilt of the Creator to man ; as we may right- 
fully use any of these inferior things as property ; it is impossible 
they should have any interests or claims, which can prevail against 
ours. They stand in a relation to us, analagous to that which we 
sustain to God. They are made for our pleasure, as we were 
made for His. 

Slavery is a practical oversight and denial of this grand dis- 
tinction ; regarding man as a mere thing so far as rights are con- 
cerned ; as the gift of God to another, and not the owner of him- 
self; as a proper instrument for the sole gratification of his mas- 
ter ; as one of the fish, or fowls, or beasts of the earth, which 
realize the highest capabilities of their nature and the noblest end 
of their existence, by becoming articles of property. 

2. A person is a subject of moral obligation; a thing is not. 
Rights and duties are correlative terms. My possession of rights 
imposes on all others an obligation to respect them ; and I in turn 
am bound to respect their rights. Man sustains the relation of a 
subject to the government of God, and' the relations of parent, 
husband, child, neighbor, citizen, to his fellow creatures, each requi- 
ring specific services, which he cannot innocently neglect. The 
very reverse is true of things. They are incapable of recognizing 
the existence of rights and duties. They sustain no moral rela- 
tions whatever. Slavery disregards this distinction. By depri- 
ving man of the possession, control and use, of his own body, time 
and will, of his wife, children and property, it incapacitates him to 
discharge the obligations enjoined in the divine law. Whatever 



14 

duties he succeeds in performing, he performs in despite of slavery, 
wliich does its utmost to annihilate his free agency, by substituting 
the will of another in the place of his will. 

These two fundamental distinctions between persons and things, 
which slavery so utterly and unceremoniously overlooks, are 
recognized in other kinds of servitude. 

The rights of children, wards and apprentices are recognized, 
and their interests consulted, in the relation which they severally 
sustain to their parents, guardians and masters. They are not 
treated as mere things, but as persons having rights and owing 
obedience, as free agents, to the divine law. They own them- 
selves. The difference between their condition and that of the 
slave, is the same which exists between the natural state of a per- 
son and the natural state of a thing ; between proprietorship and 
property; between an owner and the thing owned ; between the 
possession of rights and an entire deprivation of them. 

A hired servant is regarded as the possessor of rights, as the 
owner of himself, as a moral being, as a man, and not as a thing. 
His labor is voluntary and compensated. The relation between 
him and his employer exists for their mutual benefit. He is him- 
self one of the contracting parties. Some, who arrogate to them- 
selves the reputation of good sense and discrimination, have ven- 
tured to call the laborers, in our factories, slaves, because they dare 
not neglect the business and disobey the orders of their employ- 
ers. But they are no more slaves than the merchant, who dares 
not offend his customers. Their employers are their customers — 
the purchasers of their labor. It is the fear of losing this market, 
and not a dread of the lash, which influences them. They dare 
not neglect the interests of their employers, on account of a per- 
sonal interest, which they have in the employment. They dare 
no be vicious, idle or unfaithful, for fear of being dismissed from a 
relation, in the continuance of which they are deeply interested. 
But the slave ! What urges him to fidelity in his unrequited, hope- 
less task ? The fear of punishment. Here is contrast enough, but 
no comparison. The one is actuated by the love of compensation, 
the hope of reward ; the other is moved, like an ox or a horse, 
by the fear of outrage and violence. 

The subjects of a despotic king are recognized as persons having 
rights, and not as mere things. They own themselves. This is 
not saying that a despotie, oppressive government is not an un- 



15 

righteous usurpation of autiiority. It is so ; yet it is not that spe- 
cific form of oppression, to which cuninion and correct usage 
applies the name, slaver}-. 

A deprivation of civil rights, as the elective iranchisc and eligi- 
biUty to office, is no denial of the distinctive attributes of a person. 
Such disfranchisement divests none of any natural rights, and 
sinks none in the least degree below the condition of man. Fe- 
males, minors, the free people of color in some states, and many 
other persons, have not the right of suffrage and are ineligible to 
office ; yet they are not treated as mere things, are not deprived 
of self-ovi^nership. There may be very great wrong in depriving 
some men of civil rights ; yet it is plainly distinguishable from an 
entire deprivation of rights, from making man a thing, the mere 
instrument of another. 

No mere restraint on the natural liberty of men can be construed 
into a denial of their personality. The object of law, in all cases, 
is to restrain the freedom of men. When we enter into society, 
it is by our mutual consent and for our mutual interest, that we 
submit to the restraints of impartial law on our freedom, lest free- 
dom itself should be no blessing, lest property, reputation and life, 
should all be lost in universal anarchy. A man thus restrained 
is not divested of the prerogatives of his nature ; is not treated as 
a thing. 

Mere compulsory servitude does not annihilate man's rights, 
and utterly deny his accountability to God. We may be sum- 
moned against our will, to serve on a jury, to do military duty, to 
remove nuisances, to educate our children : yet we are not thereby 
treated as things without rights ; for we have an interest in com- 
mon with our fellow citizens, in the administration of justice, in 
the defence of the country, and in all the wholesome regulations 
of civil society. We are not divested of our rights, but taxed for 
their protection. 

Mere cruelty, however atrocious, is not reducing man to a level 
with the brute, by an entire deprivation of his rights. The most 
shocking cruelties have been inflicted on freemen ; while the most 
abject slaves are sometimes attired in costly apparel and fed on 
the richest dainties of the land. They are clothed in silks, and 
indulged in luxurious idleness, merely to gratify the pride or the 
lusts of their masters. Mere cruelty can no more reduce a man 



16 

to the condition of a thing, than these indulgences can elevate 
him from it. 

Nor is the servitude of criminals, as of State's prison convicts, 
a denial of the two grand distinctions betv^^een persons and things. 
Having a common interest with others in the supremacy of law, 
they are punished for crime, not as mere things, but as persons 
possessing rights ; for their punishment consists in depriving them 
of a part, and a part only of their rights. They owe a debt to 
society, which they are bound to pay by bearing the just penalty 
of the law. But though they may be condemned to solitary con- 
finement and hard labor for life, in the service of the State ; it 
does not amount to a deprivation of personal ownership, to an 
entire divestiture of rights, to an annihilation of the distinction 
between persons and things. No one owns them ; no one may 
sell them. The government cannot transfer the entire control 
of them to another power, with the right to hold them, and dis- 
pose of them as mere things. No such right is ever asserted. 
They have legal security against any inflictions and deprivations 
not included expressly in the sentence of the law. Their children, 
born after their imprisonment, are free, showing that they are not, 
like cattle and slaves, considered mere things, the absolute prop- 
erty of others. They are recognized in most, if not all, the States 
of this confederacy, not as civilly dead, but as still sustaining in 
law, the various relations of life. A pardon would restore them 
at once, the owner to his property, the husband to his wife, the 
citizen to his political privileges ; to rights which they never for- 
feited, and which they ceased to enjoy only as an incident to their 
punishment. Depriving them of the liberty of locomotion, and of 
the avails of their labor, in just retribution for their crimes, is nei- 
ther an intentional nor actual denial of their personality, of their 
right to be treated as men, and not as things. An imprisoned 
debtor is deprived of locomotion and of his time ; but not o^ self- 
ownership ; not of all his rights. Compelling him to labor in jail 
for the liquidation of his debts, would not render him, even for the 
time being, the absolute property and instrument of his creditor. 
To suppose him such would imply, that every laborer, who owes 
services for wages paid in advance, and is forced to render them* 
is the property of his employer. Nor is there any essential differ- 
ence between the condition of a debtor, imprisoned at hard labor 
for the benefit of his creditor, and the condition of a convict, who is 



17 

forced in like manner to pay his debt to society. In neither case 
is man struck from existence as the possessor of riglits. We 
have here, however, a closer approximation to slavery than any 
other kind of servitude, which dispenses with the chattel principle 
as an element ; for \\ hile the two grand distinctions between per- 
sons and things arc neither denied nor overlooked in the punish- 
ment of the criminal ; yet he is divested of an unusually large 
share of his natural rights. 

SLAVEIIOLDING INVARIAtJLV SINFUL. 

This is the main question at issue. The preceding definition 
and explanations are given to guide us to a correct conclusion, on 
this important, practical point : Is slaveholding a malum in se, an 
act essentially, inherently, necessarily, invariably sinful ? 

An obvious distinction exists between mala in se, and inala per 
accidentia vel consequentia ; the former, actions wrong in them- 
selves, being essentially and invariably sinful ; the latter, actions 
made wrong hy circumstances, or certain evil conseqriences not 
necessary to them, being variable in their moral character. 

An action in itself right, may in some circumstances be wrong ; 
and therefore a change of circumstances may again make it right. 
Illustrations of this are familiar to every one. 

A single man is acquainted with two unmarried women. It is 
right for him to marry either of them. He marries one. Circum- 
stances have now changed, so that he cannot innocently marry 
the other. His wife dies. The circumstance which made it 
wrong for him to marry the other person is removed, and he can 
now lawfully marry her. 

It is in itself right to go from Hartford to New York, either 
by land or by water. But if you have promised to meet a friend 
in New York to-morrow, at so early an hour, that you cannot 
reach there in season except by water ; this circumstance would 
render it wrong to attempt the journey by land. Were you, 
however, to receive a letter, in the interim, from your friend, 
stating that it would be equally convenient for him, to meet you 
on a future day, affording you ample time for the journey, by 
either mode : this circumstance would aij-riin render it riafht for 
you to take the stage instead of the steamboat. 

It was not in itself wrong for Paul to eat meats offered to idols. 

It became wrong, when it appeared, that certain weak believers 
3 



18 

would understand him to cat in honor of the idol, and be tempted 
by his example to practice idolatry. As the eating of such meats 
was wrong only on account of the presence of weak believers, it 
became right for the apostle again to eat in their absence. The 
circumstances of their presence and iceak faith made the act 
wrong ; a change in these circumstances would, therefore, render 
the act right. 

But it is otherwise with acts wrong in themselves ; which, as 
they are not made wrong by circumstances, can be right in no 
change of circumstances. Such, for instance, is blasphemy. It 
is wrong under all circumstances to blaspheme God : for blasphe- 
my is not made wrong by circumstances ; it is in itself wrong. 

Some deny this evident distinction between mala in se, and 
mala per consequentia, on the ground that the moral character of 
an action depends solely on the intention of the actor, and not in 
the least on the mode ox form of the act. A man knocks another 
down. If he does it with a malicious intention, he sins ; but if by 
accident, without design, or in righteous self-defence, he is guilt- 
less. In each case the form of the action is the same ; yet the 
moral character of the act is in one instance sinful, and in the other 
innocent, if not virtuous. This, it is averred, is true universally, 
the form of an action aftbrding no infallible criterion, by which to 
determine its moral nature. The inference is, that slaveholding 
may be right ; that it is improper to declare it sinful in all cases, 
since we cannot read the master's heart, and he may mean it for 
the exclusive good of the slave. 

The fallacy of this argument lies in the false assumption, that 
the intention of an actor can never be inferred from the mode or 
form of his action. So far from truth is this, that certain forms of 
action, when adopted by free agents, or in the exercise of free 
agency, are infallible tests and exponents of bad motives. Although 
blasphemy in the mouth of a maniac is no indication of a blasphe- 
ming mind, in the mouth of a free agent, it demonstrates a corrupt 
heart as the source of it. We cannot address the Supreme Being 
in terms of reproach with good intentions. The same is true of 
all those modes of action, which invariably and necessarily tend to 
the dishonor of God, to the detriment of his kingdom, to the viola- 
tion of justice ; as idolatry, adultery, lying and stealing. All those 
precepts of the Bible, which interdict certain modes of action, 
without indicating or admitting exceptions, are based on the as- 



10 

sumption, that actions of these forms are too evidently improper 
and pernicious to be adopted with riglit intentions. They are not 
proliibitions of blasphemous, adulterous, fraudulent, murderous 
intentions merely, but of certain modes of action in which the 
mind cannot act freely with other intentions. The repugnance of 
these modes of action to good morals is in many cases intuitive, 
and is always so on the surface of things as to be easily and cer- 
tainly ascertained b}' every honest inquirer ; by which the possi- 
bility of adopting them with honest intentions, is effectually pre- 
vented. No one can act virtuously in modes, which he is not 
satisfied, by faitliful inquiry, are lawful ; and he cannot be misled 
in his inquiries but by a heart which vitiates all the actions of man. 
We do not question that a slaveholder 'may think ho is holding 
slaves for their exclusive benefit. This may be the motive for 
holding them, of which he is most conscious. Other motives, how- 
ever, may give their moral coloring to his conduct. A sinful pre- 
judice against his slaves ; a contempt of then' powers ; a disregard 
of their rights as men ; an unwillingness to acknowledge at once 
his own wrong ; a fear of displeasing other slaveholders ; a selfish 
shrinking from the losses and inconveniences of immediate eman- 
cipation ; may indispose him to judge impartially respecting their 
interests. The state of the heart — the ultimate as well as the 
proximate motive — is to be considered in deciding the moral cha- 
racter of an action. Should a physician take the life of a patient, 
of whose recovery he despairs, impelled by a compassionate desire 
to relieve him from suffering, this motive would not sanctify the 
deed. The act would derive its character from the state of mind 
—the culpable disregard of human life — the contempt of God's 
law : Thou shalt not kill — in which it originated. So also, if a 
person should steal merely to relieve the wants of a suffering 
family, the motive, however benevolent and praiseworthy, would 
not justify him. The ultimate motive — the bad state of heart — 
which made hini willing to gratify his pity for an object of distress, 
by wronging another person, decides the character of his con- 
duct. Thus mala in se, or actions wrong in themselves, can never 
be perpetrated with virtuous intentions. Stealing and other acts 
of this class, cannot be changed into virtues, by springing from 
good motives. The wrong is too palpable. 

Slaveholding, we claim, belongs to this class of actions ; it is a 
malum in se, a sin independent of circumstances. The argument 



20 

in proof of this, we shall arrange under several distinct divisions, 
exhibiting it in various attitudes, for the purpose of affecting minds 
of every grade and construction. 

1. Slaveholding in its ?ni.ldest form is an unwarrantable degra- 
dation ofliuman beings. Man is created in the image of God; 
made a little lower than the angels ; crowned with glory and 
honor ; placed on a throne to be lord and proprietor of the fish of 
the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moveth on 
the earth. He is formed to seek happiness, to discharge duties, to 
scatter blessings, in this elevated sphere of action. Slavery de- 
thrones him ; thrusts him down from his exalted state to a place 
among the brutes ; subjects him to a condition for which he was 
not made ; to which he is not adapted ; where he cannot act him- 
self; where nothinsf human is left free and unimpaired but a sus- 
ceptibility to suffering. Can governments ever innocently sanc- 
tion such an outrage ? Can individuals innocently commit it ? 
We think not. The declarations of the Bible, and in this case, 
the equally explicit voice of nature, teach that man was made to 
have dominion over the lower creation, not to fraternize with it. 
So evident is this that we must forget the manhood of the slave, 
before we can excuse the enslaver. Said the celebrated Montes- 
quieu : ' We must not admit that the Negro is a man, lest it 
should follow that we are not Christians.' This unwarrantable 
degradation of man from his original and proper rank in creation, 
to an article of property, to the place and uses of a thing, is not an 
acac?ewf of slavery ; it is the very essence of the thing; its cardinal 
principle ; that which must enter into a system of servitude to 
constitute it slavery ; that, without which there cannot be a slave. 
A deprivation of self-ownership — this is the unwarrantable degra- 
dation of man — and this is inseparable from slavery ; it is slavery 
itself; and hence every act of slaveholding is essentially sinful. 

Should any think this argument inconsistent with the right of 
punishing crime by imprisonment, since this is placing man in an 
unnatural condition, where he cannot discharge the ordinary du- 
ties of life ; we would refer them to this grand distinction between 
the two cases. While slavery pours contempt on the image of 
God, by pronouncing man a legitimate piece of property ; impris- 
onment for crime honors that image, by vindicating his violated 
rights : and while slavery removes man from his appropriate 
sphere of light, usefulness and enjoyment, to a land of darkness, 



21 

sterility and wo ; imprisonment for crime is a just measure of 
defence to society against the example and violence of a useless 
and unworthy member. Nor should it be overlooked, that the 
criminal loses by imprisonment,nothing hut his place in society — ho 
does not sink to the level of a thing — he is still regarded as a man. 
2. Slavf/ioI(lin<r is inmriahhj a usurpation ofdiviwj authorUy. 
Man is responsible to God for the use of his powers. His facul- 
ties are his own, only in relation to his fellow creatures. They 
belong in the strictest sense to his Creator. The wicked of an- 
cient times were censured for saying : ' Are not our tongues our 
own V As we exist lor the pleasure of God, we are bound to 
employ our powers of thought, of speech, of feeling, of execution, 
in obedience to the principles and precepts of His word. Hence 
we cannot alienate the entire control of our faculties ; and no one 
can, without usurpation, exercise or hold such power over us. 
We may pass to others the use of our " tongues," under limita- 
tions, which leave us still at liberty to govern them by a supreme 
regard to the will of God. The assertion of a more absolute con- 
trol over us, is subversive of the rights of the divine government ; 
it is dethroning God by making the will of man paramount. Such 
is the power of the slaveholder, by which the will of the slave is 
subjected, on pain of fearful penalties, to the absolute dictation of 
another. He may be legally required to sin against God, by 
restraining prayer and exhortation, by whipping his parents, by 
lying, by sabbath-breaking, by adultery • and in case of refusal, 
be doomed to excruciating punishment. Surely society can never 
rightfully confer such power, nor can individuals innocently pos- 
sess it. It is that despotic power, which cannot be exercised 
without oppression, and which it is, therefore, sinful to confer or 
hold. It is idle to say, that one is guiltless for claiming and hold- 
ing this power, provided he does not exercise it. He cannot fail 
to exercise it. He necessarily interferes with freedom of con- 
science and moral agency, by forcibly detaining another in a con- 
dition, where the duties of parents,- children, friends, citizens, 
christians, cannot be freely and fully discharged. Whatever lib- 
erty may be allowed a slave, he must suft'er restraint in regard to 
plans of prospective duty, enjoyment and usefulness : he is not free 
to serve God, Yet were the slaveholders power not employed 
to involve the slave in sin either of commission or omission : the 
mere possession is usurpation; it is claiming and holding divine 



22 

power ; it is laying hands on a prerogative of Jehovah ; it is 
reducing man to complete dependence on the will of his fellow, and 
holding him under-legal liability to be forced against his conscience 
and his duty ; it is, in short, placing one man in the condition of 
God to another, than which it is difficult to conceive of sin, more 
inherent, palpable and presumptuous. 

3. Slaveholding is an unwari^antahle infringement of the 
natural rights of man. Natural rights are those which belong 
to every human being by nature, and which are founded on the 
faculties with which the Creator has endowed us. Each power 
of body or mind is such an endowment, conferring on man the 
right to possess and use it for his own good, the good of others, and 
the glory of God. Such, for example, is the gift of vision. God 
has conferred on man the sense of sight. It is, therefore, the divine 
will that he should see. Hence it is his right to see ; and this 
right imposes on all other men the obligation of respecting it. 
Apply this example to the case before us. Man has a natural 
title to all the immunities and privileges involved in self-ownership ; 
to all the rights which are based on the several endowments of 
his body and mind. He has an original, absolute, perfect right, 
(restrained only by impartial law) to his time, to the fruits of his 
industry and skill, to the use and improvement of his understand- 
ing, to the free exercise of religion, to personal liberty, to personal 
security, to acquire, hold and disburse property, to marry, to rule 
his own house, to pursue and communicate happiness. As all 
these rights are common to the human race, being founded on the 
common endowments of men, and given by the Creator to man as 
man, it is plainly the will of God, that each man should have the 
benefit of them ; and therefore it must needs be a violation of his 
will to infringe any one of them, even in the person of the feeblest 
and meanest of mankind. Slavery, however, infringes them all. 
By one fell act it blots man from existence as the possessor of 
rights. He loses his will, his freedom, his personality, in the loss 
of himself. Slaveholding is, therefore, not a sin "singular," but a 
" complication of villanies," as one, not inaptly, not too harshly, 
expresses it. The master, who deprives his slave of one right, 
constantly commits at least one sin against God and man. By 
depriving him of ten rights, he constantly commits ten sins. If he 
deprives a hundred slaves of ten rights each, he continually com- 
mits a thousand sins, as a slaveholder. Nor is it possible 



23 

so to modify slavery that it shall bo ulhcr than the rubbery of 
human rights ; it being essentially a deprivation of self-ownership, 
the generic right of man ; the right on which all his specilic rights 
dejiend. 

Some of the natural rights of man may be forfeited to society; 
in which case it is no violation of right to take them away. Pun- 
ishments for crime must necessarily consist in deprivations and 
inflictions, with which to visit an innocent man, would be a viola- 
tion of right. Crime is, therefore, a forfeiture of rights in all 
cases, where the deprivation of them, is a proper and just punish- 
ment. Self-ownership, the aggregate of human rights, however, 
is unforfeitable ; not that slavery would be an excessive, unmer- 
ited retribution for some crimes ; but because it lacks some of the 
essential characteristics of punishment, viz. certainty of execution, 
equality, sec7irify to society, consistency loith public virtue and 
moral rectitude. 

Certainty of execution. Suppose society undertakes to punish 
a criminal by offering him for sale to the highest bidder. The pur- 
chaser becomes his absolute owner. The next day, it may be, he 
emancipates him, or leaves him to heirs, or to creditors, who re- 
fuse to enforce the title ; or the slave, having no prison-walls 
about him, makes his escape. 

Equality ofpunisJiment. One criminal would fall, by slavery, 
into the hands of a natural tyrant ; another, equally guilty, into the 
hands of a kind hearted man. One would soon be released ; 
another would be held in slavery for life. One, the adroitest and 
guiltiest rogue of the two, would effect his escape ; another of less 
capacity would make the attempt, only to be re-taken and barba- 
rously punished. 

Security to society. Enslaved criminals would constitute a 
dangerous class in the community. The talents, the knowledge, 
the depravity of such men, as are ordinarily guilty of crimes, for 
which slavery is not a punishment immeasureably too severe, 
would render it extremely hazardous to allow them even a slave's 
liberty of locomotion. It would undoubtedly lead to the commis- 
sion of more crime than it would prevent ; and thus defeat the 
very object of punishment, the peace and security of society. 

Consistency with public virtue. The possession of irresponsi- 
ble power tends directly to sour the temper, to inflate the pride, 
to exasperate the passions of the slaveholder, and to subject the 



24 

slave to unavoidable participation in the sins of others. Were it 
the design of government to introduce into society an engine of the 
most tremendous pOwer and nice adaptation to corrupt the morals 
of the people ; to contract and counteract the influence of the 
gospel, slavery might fairly claim the unenviable distinction. 

Moral rectitude. Punishment must also be consistent with the 
fundamental principles of morality. Man can never forfeit his 
right to act virtuously, and society can never acquire a right to 
treat him viciously ; to subject him to a condition or to usage at 
variance with the divine law. No government can rightfully 
make prostitution, the renunciation of religion, hard labor on the 
Sabbath, or the commission of any other sin, a punishment for 
crime ; because the right to be virtuous cannot be forfeited. 
Hence self-ownership is strictly inalienable. We cannot forfeit a 
right, except to one who has a right to exact the forfeiture. But 
slavery imparts to the master a power of compulsion and restraint 
utterly inconsistent with the moral agency of the slave ; with a 
conscientious and virtuous course of life ; with a fulfilment of the 
duties of a husband, father, child and friend; while it also sends 
its poisonous influence through all the ranks of life. A govern- 
ment would be false to its trust to punish a criminal by such ser- 
vitude, than which there is no deadlier foe to public virtue, secu- 
rity and thrift ; and the individual, who should purchase or hold 
him, would sin against his own soul by assuming such despotic 
power, and against his family by admitting a felon among them. 
As, therefore, society cannot accept the foifeiture of personal 
ownership, it cannot be forfeited ; and whoever is deprived thereof, 
is suffering an unwarrantable deprivation of rights ; a deprivation, 
which society cannot innocently sanction, which individuals can- 
not innocently inflict. 

In reference, doubtless, to this fact that slavery is deficient in 
many essential characteristics of punishment, the author of an able 
article on slavery in the Encyclopaedia Americana, vol. xi. p. 430, 
thus expresses himself. '• We do not consider that either indivi- 
duals or governments have any right to dispose of the lives of the 
vanquished ; nor are even criminals allowed to he made slaves in 
the full sense of the word.'" 

As self-ownership cannot be forfeited by crime ; neither can it 
be alienated by any other act. It is inherent in human nature. 
It cannot be lost by birth, by gift, by contract, or by captivity. 



25 

Tlic writer quoted above, justly observes in the same article ; 
" Slavery can never be a legal relation. It rests entirely on force. 
The slave being treated as property, and not a'lowed legal rights, 
cannot be under legal obligation. Slaveuy is, also, inconsistent 
with the moral nature of man. Each man has an individual worth, 
significance and responsibility, is bound to the work of self-im- 
provement, and to labor in a sphere lor which his capacity is 
adapted. To give up his individual liberty is to disqualify himself 
for fulfilling the great objects of his being. Hence political soci- 
eties, which have made a considerable degree of advancement, c?o 
not allow any one to resign his liberty any ynore than his life, to 
the pleasure of another." It is as clearly and essentially wicked 
for a man to sell himself into absolute slavery, as it is to commit 
suicide. Judge Blackstone takes the same views. Without allu- 
ding to the punishment of crime as a possible basis for slavery) 
he declares, in his Commentaries, that the other three origins of 
the practice, are all builded on false foundations. He denies that 
a captor can innocently reduce his captive to slavery ; that a man 
can sell himself into slavery, or that one can be born a slave. 
Wesley lays down the same doctrine bv denying that one man 
can in any way become the rightful property of another. " You," 
he says, " first acted the villain in making them slaves, whether 
you stole them or bought them." " Have you, has any man liv- 
ing, a right to use another as a slave ? It cannot be, even setting 
revelation aside. Neither war nor contract can give any man 
such a property in another as he has in his sheep and oxen. Much 
less is it possible that any child of man should ever be born a slave. 
Liberty is the right of every human creature as soon as he 
breathes the vital air ; and no human law can deprive him of that 
right, which he derives from the law of nature. If therefore you 
have any regard for justice, to say nothing of mercy or of the 
revealed law of God, render unto all their due. Give liberty, to 
whom liberty is due, to every child of man, to every partaker of 
human nature." 

These positions appear to us to be perfectly tenable, and to 
comprehend every possible case of slaveholding. As mankind 
are all created free ; as they are endowed by their Creator with 
birth-rights ; as the sum total of these rights can in no way be 
alienated ; it would seem, that every slave is now the rightful 
owner of lilmself, and fully entitled to liberty. Having been de- 



26 

prived of self-ownership wrongfully, no one ever had, no one 
could convey, no one could acquire a valid title to him. His title 
to himself remains, and must remain unimpaired. Though he 
may have passed thrcfugh the hands of ten thousand claimants to 
his body and soul, he is still in right and justice, his own propri- 
etor. He is a wronged man, into whosesoever hands he may fall, 
until he falls into possession of himself; and the slaveholder is the 
wrong doer. The same principle applies universally. The rule 
admits of no exceptions. So says the irrefutable doctrine, that 
self-ownership is an inalienable right ; for enslaving men is di- 
vesting them of this right. If the right is inalienable, taking it 
away under any circumstances, is stealing. 

4. It can never be right to sanction, by our exam-pie, a principle, 
which cannot be generally adoptod without damage to the commu- 
nity ; and therefore slaveholding is a malmn in se, an act invari- 
ably sinful. Our argument, thus far, is based on the doctrine of 
rights, human and divine. We have yet to enter the heavy 
charge against slavery, that it is necessarily subversive of human 
interests, both for time and eternity, both in the person of the slave 
and his master. This single topic demands the limits of our entire 
article, to do it the semblance of justice ; indeed the materials 
which it presents are well nigh inexhaustible. We can only give 
a very imperfect outline of the argument by showing what are 
some of the legitimate and unavoidable effects of slavery on the 
temporal and spiritual interests of the parties ; and that holding a 
slave, on any pretence, is sanctioning the principle, from which 
issues this river of blood and abominations. 

Slavery corruj)ts the morals of the people both bond and free. 
The slave is a liar, because he is a slave. His dependent, exposed 
and helpless condition, makes him a hypocrite by profession. 
The business of his life is to deceive his master. While he is 
cursing him in his heart, he avov;s strong affection for him ; and 
while liberty is the day dream of his existence, he expresses per- 
fect contentment with his lot. He pretends sickness to avoid his 
unrequited task, and lies at every turn to conceal the unavoidable 
mistakes or real faults, for which he dreads the lash of the over- 
seer. He is a thief, because he is a slave. This is proverbial. 
True, he considers it merely making reprisals for the robbery of 
his wages; a point in casuistry which we shall not now attempt 
to settle. Instigated by the desire of food in greater quantity or 



27 

variety, than is commonly enjoyed by men in his condition, he pur- 
loins not only from his master, what is rightfully his own, but 
from the neighbors of his master. He is a Sabbath breaker, he- 
cause he is a slave. Neither the example nor precepts of slave- 
holders are apt to teach the slave the sacredncss of the day, which 
is allotted him for recreation, for cultivating his garden, for wash- 
ing and mending his garments, for trading and visiting friends. 
He is also licentious, because he is a slave. He has no character, 
no marringc rights, no power of resistance to his master's will ; 
and how can he have any sense of obligation to the seventh com- 
mandment ? He is a rjiiirderer, because he is a slave. He hates 
his oppressor. His bosom is often agitated with a spirit of revenge. 
We do not say, that all slaves are guilty of these sins habitually, 
but that the tendency of slavery is to make them, in a greater de- 
gree than they otherwise would be, regardless, in all these respects, 
of the restraints and requirements of the moral law. 

Slavery is no less destructive to the morals of the masters. In 
the Encyclopasdia Americana, vol xi. p. 43:2, it is truly said : " The 
effects of slavery have always been most injurious to the nations, 
that have permitted it. It is so directly opposed to the nature of 
man (which can as little endure absolute power as absolute sub- 
jection, without greatly degenerating) that it has always had a 
palsying influence on the industry and morality both of the mas- 
ters and the slaves." The remarks of Mr. Jefferson in his Notes 
on Virginia, are valuable as the testimony of a slaveholder. He 
says : " The whole commerce between master and slave is a per- 
petual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremit- 
ting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the 
other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it ; for man is 
an imitative animal. If a parent had no other motive, either in 
his own philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intem- 
perance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a 
sufficient one, that his child is present. But generally it is not 
sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the 
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller 
slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, edu- 
cated and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by 
it with odious peculiarities." The testimony of the best witnesses 
might be multiplied to almost any extent, in proof of the deepest 
degeneracy of morals among masters, in all slaveholding coun- 



28 

tries. Their idleness and prodigality, besides being themselves 
vices from the fruitful soil of slavery, invariably introduce immoral 
customs and sports, as Sabbath breaking, horse racing, cock- 
fighting, gambling and dueling, and the other various devices of 
the idle and vicious, to kill time, and gratify their depraved pas- 
sions and appetites. To this evidence from history, philosophy 
adds her decisive opinion, that man cannot, with safety to his cha- 
racter, be the depository of despotic power over individuals, espe- 
cially if they are of the other sex, and bound and protected by no 
ties of natural affection. The facilities to low vice which such 
power imparts, it is not in the unregenerate nature of man, to resist. 
Whatever may be the effect on individuals, the community in all 
slaveholding states, is stamped with moral peculiarities, of the 
most odious character, the direct and inevitable results of this 
institution. 

Slavery is an anlagomst to Christianity. Whatever stand 
the church may take, in reference to the practice ; whether she 
condemns, sanctions, or winks at slavery ; its existence on her 
soil, in her field of labor, will cripple her energies, and impede her 
progress. Her refusal to hold slaves, her open condemnation of 
the principle, will excite the jealousy and hostility of slaveholders, 
whose attachment to the practice will, in the same ratio, strengthen 
their aversion to the Gospel. They will be apt not to tolerate, 
much less embrace, a religion, which attacks their idols. The 
case is still more deplorable, when the christian church holds 
slaves ; for then the world will be tempted to reject her religion 
as an imposture ; to deny with too much plausibility its divine 
origin and authority. Nor is this all. The general ignorance, 
imbecility and moral corruption, which slavery engenders, present 
a fearful degree of resistance to pure religion. There is also to 
be noticed in every slaveholding country, an alarming destitution 
of the means of grace, arising partly from the indifference or repug- 
nance of the masters to the gospel, but chiefly from the withdraw- 
ment of the laboring classes from its support. What would be- 
come of the churches and schools of any of our northern towns, 
if all the real and moveable estate, and all the human beings in it 
were the property of a few men, and these few men were infidels? 
This question suggests the reason why the institutions of Chris- 
tianity are iew and far between in slave states. It must be so, 



29 

wherever that, class, to whom the gospel is especially good tidings, 
arc denied the privilege of supj)orting and propagating il. 

Slavery is nnfriendhj to education. The masters will ordina- 
rily do nothing for the instruction of their slaves, beyond what is 
required to make them good "instruments,"' It is naturally 
thought, that the arts of reading and writing, the very elements of 
a literary education, arc acquirements, which cannot be allowed 
to the slave without diminishing his value as a beast of burden, 
facilitating his escape from bondage, and jeopardizing the life of 
his master ; so that custom, if not the law of the land, commonly 
deprives him of this privilege. Nor docs general education ever 
flourish in the community of masters. The indolence, the luxury, 
the vices of slaveholding countries, retard the intellectual progress 
of the people. The property is thrown into the hands of a sparse 
population, in the agricultural districts, rendering a system of 
common school instruction, next to impracticable. This obstacle 
is increased by the poverty of large masses of the free people, 
on whom the support of schools depends. The slaves are natur- 
ally put, by their proprietors, to the cultivation of the soil, and 
other laborious employments, which, as a badge of a servile con- 
dition, it is disgraceful for freemen to pursue ; and as the children 
of slaveholders, grow up with these views, and without tlic invigo- 
rating: influence of manual labor, both to bodv and mind, many of 
them soon dissipate their paternal estates, and sink into the lowest 
depths of poverty and imbecility. They form a class incapable 
either of appreciating the benefits of education, or of securing 
them for their wretched offspring. Such is the voice of history. 

Slavery tends to impoverish a country. By confining labor 
almost entirely to the slave population, who cannot be expected 
to work with the energy and skill of freemen, ihe productive power 
of the nation, must be greatly diminished; and while less is pro- 
duced, more will be expended, for the money of a slaveholder, 
like the prize in a lottery, comes too easily to be appreciated. 

Nor is that economy of expenditure which in free states is the 
grand secret of accumulation, consistent with a sloA^eholder's no- 
tions of respectability. To maintain his rank, he deems the attend- 
ance of a slave to be indispensable : and hence the expenses of 
living are usually much greater in slave countries than in the free. 
It is also difficult and perhaps impracticable to cultivate the soil 
by slave labor, at the same expense to the proprietor, with which 



30 

he might cuUivate it, b}' free labor, to mucli better advantage. 
But whatever may be the cause, whether it Hes in the inefficiency 
and prodigahty of the master, or in the carelessness and inactivity 
of the slave (for which let others blame him) ; the thrift and pros- 
perity of free states, where other influences have been similar, 
stand in striking contrast with the waste and desolation of slave- 
holding countries. 

Slavery iveakens the State. Slaves are the natural enemies of 
society. They derive no benefit from the government, under 
which they live ; they toil that others may rest, and sow that 
others may reap. They suffer continual outrage and wrong. 
Insurrections are the natural consequence, whenever there is the 
least prospect of success to encourage them. In such events, 
every slaveholder in the disturbed district is obliged to stand a 
sentinel at his own door. He can neither extend relief to his 
neighbors, nor obtain relief from them. His helplessness is still 
more complete and pitiable, when a foreign enemy or a revolu- 
tionist, calls the slaves to his standard, with the promise of liberty. 
Then nothing can prevent the subjugation of the country, the 
overthrow of the government, and the incalculable distress of the 
inhabitants ; for servile wars are apt to be the most ferocious, 
sanguinary and revengeful. 

Slavery imparts to a people a martial character, eminently 
hostile to the arts of peace, and to the security of human life. The 
implements of death are as familiar as " household words" to a 
slaveholding community. They are constantly borne about the 
person ; it being thought necessary for defence against the vio- 
lence or insolence of the slaves ; but the spirit, which is thus 
cherished by the frequent sacrifice of their lives, and by habitual 
equipment for deeds of blood, is seen in the violent tempers, the 
ungovernable passions, the fatal encounters of the people ; in the 
impetuosity with which they rush into war at every real and ima- 
ginary grievance and insult ; and revenge their private wrongs 
with the steel of the duelist, if not of the assassin. Among slave- 
holders human life is too cheap to be secure. 

Slavery is necessarily cruel. It has ever been a source of 
intolerable hardship and suffering. The kindest master is cruel, 
by holding his slaves liable to the treatment of cattle ; by keeping 
them in constant apprehension of evil. The best witnesses also 
declare, that cruelty is the rule and kindness the exception. But 



31 

were it otherwise ; were the instances of cruelty rare ; even 
these would be a sulHcient argument against conferring the legal 
power to inflict them. That law is unrighteous and despotic, 
which protects one man in wantonly tormenting another. The 
whole voice of history, however, proclaims, that this unrighteous 
power of the slaveholder, is bitterly felt by the mass of the slaves ; 
that few escape the infliction of barbarous punishments ; that all 
find the tender mercies of slavery to be cruel. 

These are some of the legitimate and constant effects of slavery. 
Wherever the practice extensively prevails, it sacrifices all these 
interests. The morals and religion of the people, their intellectual 
improvement, their means of easy and independent subsistence, 
their private security, their national strength, together with the 
other most valuable interests, both of the masters and their slaves, 
are all sunk in this system of servitude. 

We, therefore, think it evidently a dangerous doctrine, that 
man may rightfully be changed into an article of property, instead 
of owning himself; a doctrine, which no one can innocently sanc- 
tion by his example or precepts. Nor is it possible to hold a 
slave without sanctioning the principle ; for whatever may be the 
motive of the master, or the effect on " his chattel ;" he declares 
by his conduct, that holding man as a piece of property is not in 
itself wrong. He claims that slavery is invariably right, at least 
not invariably wrong ; and in either case, his claim will be regard- 
ed by his fellow slaveholders as a sufficient sanction of their con- 
duct. A striking confirmation of this is afforded by a distin- 
guished professor of theology in Missouri ; who bought a slave, 
Ambrose, with the promise of freedom as soon as he should re- 
deem himself by his labor. As this purchase was made ostensibly 
for the sole good of the slave, it was commended bv multitudes. 
But what do we behold ! When persecution drove David Nel- 
son, for his manly and christian opposition to slavery, from his 
home in that state ; and Marion College was summoned by the 
mob, to give in her adhesion to slavery ; this professor satisfied 
and propitiated the demon, by avowing himself the owner of one 
slave, and a negotiator for others ! 

5. Slavery is invariably sinful, because it is an abrogation of 
the golden rule : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." We 
have studiously avoided basing any part of our argument on the 
" peculiar" doctrines of the Bible ; for the scripture argument is 



32 

elsewhere ably exhibitdJ, and we wish to carry along with us 
the convictions of the mere deist as well as of the christian. Nor 
do we in our present argument deviate from our general design, 
since the jiuthority of the "royal law" is as truly taught by the 
light of nature, as by the word of God. We have thus far argued 
the universal sinfuhiess of slaveholding from its relations to the 
divine government ; to tlie rights and duties of the slave ; to the 
interests of the slaveholding powers. We now solicit attention 
to the fact, that slavery excludes the slave from the fraternal sym- 
pathies of mankind, by forbidding their treating him as a fellow 
man, a neighbor, a brother. Slavery, theoretically at least, re- 
gards one human being as the mere tool of another ; and though, 
in practice, it is sometimes more, and sometimes less inhuman 
and unfeeling, it is invariably a complete divestment of legal pro- 
tection in the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of brother- 
hood in the human family. So long as A. holds B. in slavery, C. 
is restrained from discharging the offices of a neighbor and friend 
to B, Whatever instruction, whatever sympathy, whatever re- 
lief, whatever protection the slave enjoys, is through the indulgence 
of the slaveholder. This not only deprives the slave of rights, but 
is a standing prohibition to mankind, of those duties to the slave, 
which are enjoined in the second table of the law. No one is 
legally empowered to act the part of a neighbor to the slave ; but 
on the contrary, to act this part would expose one to the most 
fearful penalties of the law. In the eye of the divine law, it is 
doubtless a duty to assist slaves to escape from bondage ; to the 
eye of slave-law, it is a crime. Is this right ? Can that be inno- 
cent in any case, which in every case pronounces illegal and 
penal, the discharge of the plainest and most urgent duties of hu- 
manity ? Do you say the master mmj allow others to carry the 
Bible, and other blessings and consolations to his slave; in which 
case he is not guilty ? Why not guilty ? Has he any right to 
forbid others from discharging these duties? Certainly not. 
Then what right has he to the power of forbidding them ? Can 
it be right to covet, or arrogate to ourselves, a power, which it is 
unlawful for us to exercise ? Besides, the very possession of 
power to punish, as a crime, the duties and charities of life ; the 
very existence in law of that all-absorbing claim of the master to 
exclusive intercourse with his slaves ; is a restriction on the liberty 
of others to treat that slave as a man and a neighbor. No mas- 



I 



33 

ter allows the free discharge of these duties ; no one can allow it, 
without ceasinix to be a slaveholder. 

This completes our argument in proof of the inherent and inva- 
riable sinfulness of holding human beings in the condition and 
under the liabilities of property. 

The practice is an unwarrantable degradation of human beings, 
a usurpation of divine authority, an intringemcnt of human rights, 
a sanction of a most destructive principle, an abrogation of the 
second table of the divine law. Either of these facts is suilicient 
evidence, that slaveholding is a malum in se. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

But lest any should not be fully satisfied, that slaveholding is a 
sin, which nothing can sanctify, we shall in conclusion, review 
the circumstances, by which some think it may be justified. 

In the opinion of multitudes, it is right to tolerate the continu- 
ance of slavery, after it has once been legally established. Three 
things are said in support of this opinion. It is first alleged, that 
slavery so utterly disqualifies man for the enjoyment of freedom, 
that emancipation would manifestly prove a calamity to him instead 
of a blessing : and that hence the first and at present only duty of 
the slaveholding powers, is, to prepare him for freedom. A 
heavier charge, or one more untrue, cannot be brought against 
slavery. Dreadful as is the debasing, crushing influence of this 
species of servitude, which some are so ready to deny to be a ma- 
lum in se ; it has not the power of rendering human beings more 
fit to be treated as things than as men ; a power, which transcends 
omnipotence, it being self-contradictory. It is said, secondly, that 
the sudden repeal of the laws which define and sustain slavery, 
would endanger the lives of the masters. We answer that the 
continuance of slavery endangers the lives of the masters ; and 
therefore on the objector's own principle, it ought at once to be 
abolished. It is also obvious, that if emancipation should take 
place, the slave, instead of being the victim and enemy of the 
government, would look to it for protection and regard it with 
favor ; and, instead of killing his master, would consider hhn his 
friend and requite his kindness with love and gratitude. Nor is it 
less obvious, that if a restoration to the slave of his stolen rights 

would expose the life of his master and the peace of society ; it 
5 



34 

might notwithstanding be a duty to restore them. We are re- 
quired to sacrifice our lives, as well as our houses and lands, our 
wives and our children, rather than violate any fundamental prin- 
ciple of religion and morality. The maxim, that self-preservation 
is the first law of nature, in virtue of which we may innocently 
violate in self-defence, the immutable principles of righteousness, 
is a most detestable, pernicious, demoralizing doctrine, which 
ought to be rejected with abhorrence. The apologist for slavery 
must show some better proof of its innocence than the right of the 
oppressor to protection from the consequences of his own wrong. 
Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall. It is urged, 
thirdly, that when society has once sanctioned slavery, it would 
be a breach of faith towards those who have invested property in 
slaves, to wrest that property from them by an act of legislation. 
We reply : the right of abolishing slavery has from time immemo- 
rial been claimed and exercised by the governments of the world. 
They have, also, taken it upon themselves to correct abuses ; and 
there is no greater abuse than making man the property of his 
fellow. It is moreover the united testimony of moral philoso- 
phers, and writers on the first principles of law, that mankind have 
no right to enact laws contrary to the law of God ; and that all 
such enactments are, therefore, null and void from the beginning. 
The people are under a paramount obligation not to invest prop- 
erty under the mere paper-protection of immoral laws. We 
might meet the allegation in another form. A government has 
the right of abolishing slavery, or it has not. If it has the right, 
it is no breach of faith, to exercise it ; if it has not the right, it is 
not a slaveholding government. The individual master is then 
the only slaveholder ; and he surely will violate no right of prop- 
erty by manumitting his slaves. 

Some claim it to be morally right to do any thing which the 
laivs of the land authorize. On this principle, the manufacture, 
sale and use of intoxicating drinks ; licensed gambling, Sabbath 
breaking and prostitution, are not immoral. The legalized pira- 
cies of the Algerines, and their enslavement of christian captives ; 
the most wicked wars ; the legal burning of heretics ; were inno- 
cent acts, if not absolute virtues. On this principle, human laws 
can change the very nature of things, and there is no essential dif- 
ference between right and wrong, justice and injustice, kindness and 
cruelty. 



35 

Some acknowledge it to bo- sinful to obtain slaves either by 
stealing or buying them, who nevertheless feel justified in hold- 
ing such as fall to them hy gift oi^ btj inheritance. The reason 
assigned, is, a slave bequeathed must be received. He is entailed 
on the testator's heir, we are told, whether he will or nil ; making 
him a slaveholder without his consent, so that none of the crimi- 
nality of slaveholding attaches to him. How empty this plea is, 
appears from the naked statement, that no one can hold or use 
another as property without consenting to do it. A slaveholder 
is an enforcer of the laws of slavery, of the claim to man as prop- 
erty. Others can only confer on him the power or opportunity 
of enslaving men ; to be a slaveholder, he must actually claim the 
power, or avail himself of the opportunity. If a person bequeathes 
one an estate of slaves, without his consent, he is not responsible 
for their enslavement, until he hears of the bequest and accepts it. 
The testator and the laws of the land merely place it in his power 
to become a slaveholder. They cannot make him one in the sight 
of God. No man can be made a slaveholder by the will of another 
nor by an act of the Legislature, without his own act of ratifica- 
tion, any more than one can be made President of the United 
States without accepting the office. 

The opinion prevails, to some extent, that it is unjust for an 
insolvent slaveholder, or one who has slaves with no other means 
of paying his debts, or one who has mortgaged his slaves, to set 
them free. This notion is based on the false assumption, that the 
claims of a common creditor to the amount due him, takes prece- 
dence of the claim of a man to the ownership of himself Here 
are two rival claims, A. has no property, but is the reputed 
owner of a fellow man B., who has by nature, an equal right with 
any other man, to own himself. This the objector acknowledges. 
But then he says, that A. is bound not to manumit B., while he 
owes C. a debt, which cannot be paid, unless B. is retained in 
slavery, or sold to satisfy the demand. On this principle, it is of 
more importance for the maintenance of justice and the promotion 
of human happiness, that C. should recover a debt, than that B. 
should regain possession of his own person, with a right to pursue 
and communicate happiness ; to do and get good ; to serve God ! 
On this principle, too, the infamous law of the South, which holds 
emancipated slaves liable for debts, contracted by their master 
before their manumission, is just and honorable ! The sherif, in 



3G 

execution of this law, may innocently tear a freedman from his 
home, and sell him from his wife and children, into distant bond- 
age, to satisfy the claim of a northern merchant on a bankrupt 
slaveholder ! This execrable sentiment arises from this primal 
error, that man can rightfully be made -propertu ; and hence held, 
like other property, in trust for debts. We are under no higher 
obligation to pay our debts by dishonest means, that is, in this case, 
by the oppression and robbery of the innocent, than Herod was 
to keep his oath, by beheading John the Baptist. 

That slaves may in some cases he icUlirtg to he slaves is thought 
hy some to justify holding them in that state. Without denying 
that a case may occur, in which a slave shall perfer his chains to 
freedom, we say: (1) If a man is willing to be the property of 
another, it must be because slavery has dreadfully degraded and 
debased him. If human nature has one instinct more controlling 
and ennobling than another, it is the love of liberty. We see it 
at every age and in every condition of life. No freeman, how- 
ever young, however old, however poor, is willing to be made a 
slave. We see the operation of this principle among slaves them- 
selves, when they shake their chains and struggle for release. An 
aged female slave recently left her country and embarked for 
liiberia as the price of her freedom, expecting to die either on the 
passage or soon after her arrival in Africa, yet willing to make the 
sacrifice, if she might only die free. She spurned the thought of 
dying a slave. Such being the nature of man, we say, that no 
one in whom the man has not been degraded, crushed and nearly 
annihilated, can be willing to remain a slave. If slavery makes 
such havoc of the noblest powers of the soul, it is a greater fiend 
than is commonly supposed, and the poor .victim of its deadly 
power ought at once to be released from its grasp. (2) If it is 
right to enslave those, who are willing to be slaves and no others, 
which is the hypothesis of the argument ; then a slave washes his 
master in innocence or loads him with guilt, as often as he changes 
his mind from contentment with his lot to discontent, and from 
discontent to contentment. He has onlv to be willing to be a 
slave and then unwilling fifty times a day, to change as often the 
moral character of his master's conduct. Without pronouncing 
this an absurdity, we ask, is it right for one to sustain a relation, 
which subjects his actions, whether he will or not, to such moral 
fluctuations ? He might thus become a bad man in spite of him- 



07 

self, without the least alteration in his feelings or conduct. (3) If 
it is right to hold those only in slavery, who arc willing to he 
slaves ; no one is justified in enforcing the laws of slavery. The 
laws which declare one man the ])roperti) of another, thus sanc- 
tioning his forcihlr detention as a chattel, arc all wrong, and the 
enforcing of such laws is wrong. The argument is suicidal. It 
annihilates itself. It leaches that the laws of slavery ought to be 
repealed ; that the claim to man as property ought not to be en- 
forced. No case of slaveholding could survive the practical 
adoption of this principle, that the willingness of the slave to be 
a slave, is the only thing that can justify his enslavement. 

If one has all his property invested in slaves, it is thought by 
some that he may rightfully retain them in slavery rather than 
impoverish himself by giving them their liberty. Such apologists 
for slavery, under certain circumstances, must have very errone- 
ous or confused notions of justice. They acknowledge that slaves 
have ordinarily a right to themselves ; that it would be wrong 
for one who has a competency of other kinds of property, to with- 
hold from his slaves the ownership of themselves, and the pro- 
ceeds of their labor. But the moment he invests all his property 
in slaves, his criminality as a slaveholder ceases ; or his obligation 
to release his slaves extends only to the luxuries and superfluities 
of life ; he may retain in bondage a sufficient number to satisfy 
the necessities of himself and family. They entirely overlook the 
rights of the slave. They appear to admit that he is in a pitiable 
condition, deserving the sympathy and assistance of the rich, from 
which he ought to be raised by the generosity of his wealthy pro- 
prietor : and not that he is a wronged and injured man. unjustly 
held in slavery, and demanding his freedom as an inalienable right. 
This right of the slave and not the claims of pity, is the reason 
why the great landholder ought to set him free, and it is an equally 
cogent reason why the poor widow ought to do it. It is merely 
a question of title in equity. Whom does justice, whom do the 
laws of heaven, declare to be the owner of this man ? The man 

himself. But Mrs. A , a person possessing no other property, 

has a title to him by the laws of South Carolina. Whose title 
ought to be sustained ? Let us hear the parties. 

Mrs. A. My title ought to be affirmed, because this slave is 
the only property in my possession. I must depend on my own 
exertions, on the kindness of friends, or on the charities of a cold 



38 

world, and have little or nothing to give to the poor, unless I ap- 
propriate to myself the wages of this man. 

Slave. This mind, this body, these limbs, are wine. I received 
them from God, and am fraudulently deprived of them. Unless 
I can recover my right, I must remain without property, poorer 
than the poorest freeman, without liberty, without happiness. 

Judge. As the claimant, Mrs. A. is unable to show " a Bill of 
sale from the Almighty," conveying this man to her, the Court 
decides against her claim and in favor of freedom. 

This is a righteous decision. The principle, which requires one 
to free his slaves, if he can do it without impoverishing himself, 
and not otherwise, would, if carried out, establish a system of 
agrarianism. It requires the rich to distribute a part of their 
property because they are rich, and authorizes the poorer classes 
to retain their property, not on the ground of a valid title, but be- 
cause they are poor. It also justifies the poor in stealing from the 
rich, and even in stealing jne7i, for the relief of their wants. For 
if I may rightfully hold and use a stolen man rather than submit 
to honest poverty, I may assuredly steal one as a measure of 
relief. 

Some think it would be wrong for slaveholders to emancipate 
orphan children and super anmiated and disabled slaves. In such 
cases they consider slavery not only right, but praiseworthy. 
Their error lies in overlooking the following considerations. 

(1) The master can free such slaves and still support them. 
(2) They may be supported as public paupers. (3) They may 
be supported as pensioners by the State ; for their country is in- 
debted to them for a portion of its wealth. (4) They are unsafe 
in the hands of an irresponsible master, whose interest it is, that the 
superannuated and worthless should die ; and, that while they 
live, they should be kept at the least possible expense. Who 
would venture to trust a dear relative in such a condition ? Nor 
is it safe for the orphan child to be left to the tender mercies of 
slavery. His master may now intend to give him his liberty as 
soon as he shall be able to provide for himself; but before that 
time arrives, the master changes his mind. A good offer for the 
boy proves too strong a temptation for him to resist ; and the little 
fellow is sold into hopeless bondage. It may be said, in reply, that 
the master may now provide by law for the emancipation of his 
slaves at a certain age, and thus put it out of his power to sell 



39 

them, or to prevent their ultimate enfranchisement. But in this 
case his servants are no longer slaves. He has surrendered the 
chattel principle — the claim of property — and transmuted himself 
into a guardian, or the mere master of apprentices. Thereafter 
he may or he may not be guilty of wrong, according to the pro- 
visions of his apprenticeship system ; but he is no longer guilty of 
slaveholding. We do not deny the lawfulness of holding an or- 
phan or unprotected child as a ward or apprentice ; yet the rights 
and interests of such children, require that civil government, and 
not an irresponsible master, should determine the period of their 
apprenticeship, and the conditions of it. 

It is said by some to be right io hold slaves until they can i-e- 
deem themselves ; especially if the;/ were bought with that under- 
standing. Suppose (to state the case in the strongest manner) a 
slave comes to me with the request that I would buy him, and 
permit him to work out his freedom. I buy him. He engages 
to work for me, say, seven years ; for which, in return, I engage 
to give him free papers. The question at issue, is, whether or not 
I have a moral right to hold this man in slavery, during these 
seven years, as a security for his purcliase money. We say no 
such right exists. Our reasons are these. (1) After he had 
labored, as my slave, the whole period of seven years, I should 
be under no legal obligation to emancipate him. I could still 
retain him in my service or sell him to another person. He would 
have no security, that I should fulfil my engagement ; and my 
interest in retaining him in slavery would be a dangerous, and prob- 
ably a fatal trial to my virtue. Such promises are often made 
to slaves by reputedly pious masters, without being fulfilled. 
(2) However desirous I might be of fulfilling my contract, it might 
not be in my power. Before the expiration of the stipulated term 
of service, bankruptcy might throw my slave into the hands of 
others. I ought not to subject the object of my kindness, my fel- 
low man, to such needless and fearful contingencies. (3) It is 
wrong to take a man's ownership of himself as a security for debt. 
We do not infer this from our argument to prove slavery a malum 
in se, a sin in itself, a sin in all circumstances ; for the case we are 
now considering is urged in refutation of that argument. But we 
make our appeal directly to the moral sense of our reader. Would 
you think it right for your creditor, to take you into his absolute 
possession, with the power of selling you into perpetual slavery 



40 

in Georgia, merely as security for a debt to be paid by the labor 
of seven years ? No, even if it was a debt of honor, for borrowed 
money, you would think it unreasonable, and sinful in him to ask 
for irresponsible, absolute power over you, as security. Some 
would think it unjust and oppressive even to imprison you, unless 
you were proved to be a defrauder, (4) A rich man, whose 
heart or conscience prompts him to assist a slave in redeeming 
himself, can do it as he would assist a poor freeman, by loaning 
him the redemption money and trusting him to refund it. If he 
is unable to run the risk, which would probably not much exceed 
the risk on the other plan, he is under no obligation to interfere. 
What relief he can extend to slaves, as well as to other sufferers, 
in consistency with paramount duties and without claiming and 
exercising over them unnatural authority, he ought to impart ; 
and here his duty ends. 

Some think it right to hold slaves for life, provided they were 
bought at their own request to -prevent their being sold away from 
their families. To this it may be replied, (1) The buying of 
slaves, to prevent the rupture of domestic ties, can accomplish 
only a little of what it proposes in any slaveholding country. It 
is as true in this commerce as in any other that a demand creates 
a supply. About so many slaves will be sold from those parts, 
where there is a redundance of this population, to meet the demand 
for labor in those parts where there is a deficiency. A slave is 
about to be sold. Moved to pity by his distress at the prospect 
of being torn away from his connexions, you buy him. Tlie slave 
trader soon finds another to fill his place, who is separated forever 
from friends equally near and dear. You shielded the head of 
one man ; but the blow fell on another. Humanity gained little 
or nothing. (2) The act of saving a human being from exile, is 
no excuse for subsequently confining him to your own premises, 
and working him without wages. You cannot be justified in rob- 
bing a man, merely because you have rescued him from the hands 
of a robber. An act of kindness is no apology for an act of 
injustice. (3) All slaveholders sanction slavery by their prac- 
tice. The motives of those who buy slaves from compassion, are 
either not known or are soon forgotten. Their conduct is visible 
to all the world, lending the influence of their example to the 
reputation and perpetuity of slavery. For the sake of mitigating 
the evils of slavery, they assist in perpetuating the system itself 



41 

(1) TJicy injure fhoir own characters. No one's moral princi- 
ples and passions are safe, while he possesses and exercises the 
despotic power of a slaveholder ; and lie has, therefore, no right 
to expose himself, at the solicitation of ])ity, to such a fiery trial. 

It is a current opinion, that laws forbidding emancipation, jus- 
tify the master in holding; Itin slavea. Answer. (1) Such pro- 
hibitory laws are immoral, and ought to be disobeyed. The di- 
vine law is the paramount law of every country. All human laws 
derive their legitimate authority I'rom this source ; and can there- 
fore impose no obligation to act in opjiosition to the fundamental 
principles of morality. If, therefore, slaveholding is sinful, when 
emancipation is permitted by society ; it is equally a sin, when 
prohibited. Human laws may be divided into three classes. 
First ; laws against crimes or immoralities. These are of absolute, 
immutable obligation, because they are merely re-enactments of 
the divine law. Secondly ; laws of general policy, not founded 
in fundamental moralitv. but consistent with it. The obliration 
to obey these laws results from their utility to society, and from 
the right, which God has confered on civil rulers, to govern the 
people by wholesome legislation. Laws of this class may, in 
some cases, be innocently broken ; as, for example, the law requir- 
ing certain persons to do military duty, and imposing a fine for 
failin-e. The man, who prefers to bear the penalty rather than 
obey the law, is not considered a malefactor. Thirdly ; laws 
which violate the principles of the moral law ; such, for instance, 
as violate treaties, prohibit the worship of God, or desecrate the 
Sabbath. Laws of this class, so far Irom beinrr obligatory, can- 
not innocently be obeyed. We are not only at liberty to })refer 
bearing the j)enalty, but are bound to prefer it. Such is the law 
forbidding emancipation. (2) Laws against emancipation are so 
evidently unjust and oppressive, that they have seldom been en- 
forced in any slaveholding country. Even in the United States, 
notwithstanding a strong feeling against the increase of the free 
people of color, it rarely happens, that slaves manumitted by their 
masters, in opposition to the law, are ever deprived of their liberty. 
When the Quakers released a large number of slaves in South 
Carolina, the o-overnment arrested and sold a few of them, bein"^ 
alarmed at the probable influence of manumission, on such princi- 
ples, and on so large a scale. We are convinced on careful in- 
quiry, that similar instances are very rare, compared with the 
whole number of emancipations. It is not, therefore, probable, 



42 

that the emancipator would be fined, and his slaves sold to a worse 
master. Such laws ever have been, and probably ever will be, 
to a good extent, a dead letter. (3) The most effectual way of 
obtaining the repeal of laws against emancipation, is to disregard 
them. Suppose A. sets his slaves free, notwithstanding prohi- 
bitory laws, because he believes slaveholding to be contrary to 
the divine law. The government, seizing his freedmen, sells them 
to the highest bidder. This affords A. an opportunity to preach 
with tremendous effect against the law, which sanctions this out- 
rage. If he says nothing, his conduct speaks ; it condemns the 
law ; it reproves the officers who execute it ; it thunders damna- 
tion in the ears of the auctioneer, and of every man who dares bid 
for men made free for conscience sake ; it arouses the slumbei ing 
reflections of the community. His example proves contagious. 
B. frees his slaves ; C. follows suit ; and soon it is found, a strong 
public sentiment exists against reducing emancipated men again 
to slavery. The officers of government shrink from the disgrace 
of arresting them, and purchasers cannot be found. Thus laws 
against emancipation go into desuetude. On the other hand, while 
those who disapprove of these infamous laws, yield obedience to 
them, they will never become unpopular, (4) Were the better 
class of masters at once to free themselves from all connection 
with slavery, as have the Quakers and Reformed Presbyterians 
of this country, not only the laws against emancipation, but slavery 
itself would soon expire. It is the men, who treat their slaves 
with some show of humanity, the moderate drinkers of the system, 
and not the vile and cruel, the inebriates, who wallow in the mire 
of slavery, showing undisguisedly its real featurers, who sustain 
the tottering pillars of the institution. Let all who pretend to be 
conscientious, abandon the practice, and all others would be too 
indelibly disgraced and intolerably convicted, to postpone repent- 
ance, at least in things visible, if not in spirit. It has been ob- 
jected to these views of duty, that the slaves of kind and christian 
masters would be the first to obtain their freedom, only to lose it 
again, by falling into the hands of men of less principle. This may 
be true. But in the darkest view of the case, the plan would 
purge the church of slavery, and congregate the slaves in the 
hands of the worst portion of society ; and this, if an evil, ad in- 
terim, to the slaves, would be a blessing to them ultimately, for it 
would shorten the period of their servitude. Or if their personal 
good were not promoted, the general good, the good of the slaves 



13 

as a class, the o;ood of society, might require their masters to set 
them free, as a testimony against the law prohibiting emancipa- 
tion, and against slavery itself. Slavery cannot long exist in a 
christian country without the sanction and support of the church. 
Some have urged, that, inasmuch as no slave can be legally freed 
in some connlrics, irithout an del of the Lrgisldtiire, a master may 
he UNABLE to emancipate his slaves, and therefore being a slave- 
holder by necessity, he is one innocently. Our definition of a 
slaveholder relieves this point. A master may indeed be unable 
to give Ills slaves legal emancipation on tiie soil ; but he can tell 
them they are free, he can refuse to enforce the laws of slavery, 
he can let them go whither they please, he can pay them wages 
for services rendered him, he can make them absolutely free, un- 
less others interfere ; and for their interference he is not responsi- 
ble. By doing this, if he can do no more, he ceases to hold or use 
man as property, to treat the image of God as a thing ; he ceases 
to be a slaveholder. 

Some think, that slaveholding may be justified by the ignorance 
of the slaveholder ; that it is unjust to charge him with guilt, be- 
cause he may know no better ! Answer. (I) Then it is exceed- 
ingly important to instruct him. When the commandment comes, 
his sin will revive. (2) What is the cause of his ignorance ? Is 
it not a covetous disposition, a proud heart, a selfish love of slavery, 
which makes him unwilling to see its real character ? Could he 
fail to perceive something wrong in subjecting a fellow man, his 
equal and his brother, to the condition and uses of a thing, if he 
loved that brother as himself, and had a sacred regard for his 
rights? If not; if his slaveholding spirit is the sole cause of his 
ignorance, can that ignorance justify his conduct 1 (3) He must 
necessarily know that man as man, that every man, has rights, 
which he is bound to respect ; and that slavery is a violation of 
them. The usages of society and long familiarity with a practical 
denial of this self-evident truth, may have drowned reflection, pur- 
blinded his understanding, and stupified his conscience. The 
truth, however, must still remain in possession of his mind, ready 
to assert its existence and claims as soon as the question of duty 
is agitated. To deny this is to deny the self-evidence of the doc- 
trine of human rights ; or to assert, that the mind may lose its 
capacity of perceiving intuitively the moral wrong of subjecting 
all that one man has and is to the absolute disposal of another, who 
is not bound, on his part, to render any thing in return. (4) No 



44 

man, however ignorant, can be a slaveholder, without doing vio- 
lence to his conscience. It is a universal principle in morals. 
which Paul asserts in Rom. xiv:23. " He that doubteth, is damned 
if he cat, because he cateth not of faith ; for whatsoever is not of 
faith is sin." In other words : — Whoever does an act in itself 
right, supposing it to be wrong, or doubting whether it is right, 
contracts guilt by so doing : since he does not act in " f lith," or in 
a firm persuasion of the propriety of his conduct, and with a scru- 
pulous desire to please God. By consenting, in a case of doubt, 
to run the risk of doing wrong, he manifests a culpable indifference 
to divine authority. He does violence to his conscience. To act 
with a good conscience, it is requisite, that we should honestly in- 
vestigate and unhesitatingly approve the moral character of our 
conduct. He who has not yet raised the inquiry, whether or not 
slaveholding is consistent with the divine law, is damned if he 
holds slaves, because he holds them not of faith. It cannot be 
that what he does so heedlessly, can be done in a firm conviction 
of duty to God ; and if it is not, it is " sin." He who has inquired 
into the moral nature of slavery, must have a mind of miraculous 
inconsistency, if his honest and unhesitating conclusion is, that he 
serves God by holding men in slavery. The very inquiry supposes 
a doubt of the conclusion, and every step in the investigation, if 
conscientiously prosecuted, (and otherwise it cannot satisfy the 
mind,) must render the conscientious holding of slaves still more 
impracticable. If slaveholding is a sin, as this plea of ignorance 
supposes, it is absurd to think, that honest inquiry will not detect 
it. As ignorance of the right or wrong of slavery makes inquiry 
a duty, which conscience cannot overlook ; so inquiry can only 
bring tlie wrong more fully to light, and arm the conscience more 
completely against it. 

It is said that the principle of doing to other's as loe would they 
should do to us, may make it one's duty to hold slaves. The argu- 
ment may be reduced to a syllogism. 

Major Premise. The principle of impartial love requires 
a master to treat his slaves as they may reasonably wish to be 
treated. 

Minor Premise. It is unreasonable for them to desire freedom. 

Conclusion. Whatever they actually desire, their master is 
bound to retain them in slavery. 

A fallacy in the minor premise destroys the argument. It is 
reasonable for slaves to desire their freedom, (1) They have a 



45 

right to Ircedom. Wlio says it is iiiircasoiialjlc ibr men to desire 
their rights ? (2) Freedom would be a blessing to them. So 
they think. Were we in their circumstances, such would be our 
fbelinjx. We should lonrr for liberty. Who can sav it would be 

CD O » * 

no blessing to regain their dearest rights — to gratify their most 
ardent aspirations after the common prerogatives and privileges 
of our nature ? Who is authorized to assert that they would soon 
lose their recovered rights, and fall into the power of a worse 
master ? They would at least have a prospect of retaining their 
liberty ; they would at least learn to regard themselves as men, 
they would at least jjarticipatc, as instruments, in the jirecious tes- 
timony of their master against slavery. Nor is it true that he 
must expose them, by emancipation, to re-enslavement. He can 
give them a pass to a free State. He can bring them fully and 
securely under tlie genial influence of self-ownership. May they 
not reasonably desire this inalienable right, this inestimable bles- 
sing, this sine qua non to the service of God and the pursuit of 
happiness ? 

There is moreover a most dangerous principle at the basis of 
this argument, viz. that the wise in their own conceits, may right- 
fully exercise despotic power for the good of the ignorant ; that 
the powerful may hold absolute dominion at their private discre- 
tion, for the benefit of such as they deem incapable of taking care 
of themselves ! The good of the people is the plea of all the des- 
pots on earth ; and yet a despotism is so bad a form of govern- 
ment, that no people will willingly submit to it. The slavehold- 
er's power being of this absolute description, is not a safe deposit 
in any hands, on any pretence. 

It is contended by some to be right for a slaveholder to retain 
his power for the purpose of keeping the slaves tinder his parental 
protection, provided he uses his power for 7w other object, pays 
them for their labor, and refuses to sell them. We think other- 
wise. He is not, perhaps, so wicked a slaveholder as some oth- 
ers ; but he is wicked for being a slaveholder. (1) He holds 
slaves. He has merely ceased to make man-stealing a money 
making business. He is still a man-stcalcr. He withholds from 
men the stolen right of liberty. While he refuses them free pa- 
pers or passes ; while he denies their right to leave him ; while he 
recovers runaway slaves ; what he docs for their comfort, can 
only be taken in the light of an indulgence. (2) His refusing to 
sell them, his paying them wages, is not a legal or permanent ar- 



4Q 

rangement. He holds them subject to all the liabilities of his 
other property ; and to all the probable caprices and changes of 
his own mind. (3) He is nothing but a slaveholder under convic- 
tion ; he is not yet converted. He is attempting to amend his 
manners, but his reformation is incomplete. Let him acknowledge 
all the rights of his slaves, with heartfelt repentance for the great 
sin of making man a thing ; then God will forgive him. 

Once more. George McDuthe, late governor of South Caro- 
lina, has distinguished himself as the leader of a party at the South, 
whose inflimous creed, is, that the general good of a countrij re- 
qiiires the enslavement of the laboring classes. According to his 
political and moral philosophy, the best construction of society 
divides the people into two distinct orders, the owners of the soil, 
and the unrequited operatives, property holders and prop- 
erty. This doctrine asserts, that almost all the citizens of the 
free States ought to be slaves ; for happily there are few among 
us, who esteem it not an honor and a duty to labor with their 
hands. We cannot condescend to reply to such a scandalous sen- 
timent. Many of the " circumstances," which have come under 
our eye, are sufficiently feeble justifications of slavery, to be passed 
in silence ; but this is too insulting to decency and common sense, 
to be honored with an attempt at refutation. 

In conclusion. If man can be justified by none of the forego- 
ing circumstances, to hold his fellow man as property, what can 
justify him ? We have passed in view all the most plausible pleas 
in his defence. Can he be defended ? Is he not under obligation 
to let his brother go free ? We speak not of the American slave- 
holder merely, but of every one, who claims a fellow being as his 
slave. We speak not of cruel slaveholders merely, but of the 
slaveholder, of all slaveholders. Is not slaveholding in all cases 
sinful? Is it not a malum in se ? 

REMARKS. 

1. In the preceding argument it was necessary for our purpose, 
to show, that every system of servitude, which has the " chattel 
principle" for an element, is sinful, however it may have origina- 
ted, whatever checks it may contain on the power of the master, 
and however mildly it may be administered ; and that this is also 
true of every conceivable instance of slaveholding. Whether or 
not this has been proved to the satisfaction of every mind, we think 
none can honestly attempt to justify the slavery of these United 



47 

States, which having its origin in piracy, is perpetuated, in each in- 
stance, by withholding from a confessedly innocent man, his unfor- 
feited and most sacred rights, 

2. An entire abolition of slavery consists in restoring to slaves 
the absolute oicnership of themselves. Some have thought that 
emancipation from slavery involves the immediate investiture of 
the slave with political rights, as well as with self-ownership. 
Our definition exposes this error. Such investiture may attend 
emancipation, but is no necessary part of it. Whether it is just 
or wise to withhold from any class of persons, a share in the gov- 
ernment under wiiich they live ; or whether the slaves ought to be 
setfree and endowed at the same time with all tlic privileges of a le- 
gal voter; is a question perfectly distinct from the right or wrong 
of slavery. Others have erred still more strangely. They have 
supposed that the abolition of sla\ery releases the slaves, at once, 
from all the restraints of men, and sets them afloat to prey upon 
society. They say, " it lets them loose." Nothing is more false. 
Emancipation is merely a recognition of the slave's manhood, of 
his right to himself, to his family, to his liberty, to the proceeds of 
his labor. Instead of letting him loose from healthy restraint, it 
places him under the protection and control of all the laws which 
govern freemen. 

3. Were it true, as the advocates of slavery blasphemously al- 
lege, that slavery is sanctioned by the Bible, the fact would disprove 
the divinity of that blessed Book. No evidence of its inspiration 
could equal this internal evidence of a human origin. Whoever 
will reflect, that holding man in the condition of property, cannot 
be right, unless treating him as property is right, must admit, that 
the Bible disallows of slavery in all cases, or else authorizes the 
trade in human beings, with all the inseparable accompaniments of 
restraint, privation and discipline. But if the Bible authorizes this 
trade, it is the most inconsistent of books; it authorizes the very 
oppression and robbery, which it condemns. It is also a bad book ; 
for it sanctions deeds, against which the religion of nature protests. 
But this is not the character of the Bible. Infidels think it is. The 
common argument which they urge at the South, against Chris- 
tianity, is, that it sanctions slavery. They say, we know slavery 
is a violation of every principle of justice and benevolence; but 
you christians contend, that it is authorized by your sacred books. 
Such a religion never came down from heaven. How humili- 
ating and ejecting it is, that good men should promote infidelity 



48 

by cloaking their sins under false interpretations of the Bible — 
interpretations fatal to the christian argument. 

4. The hwariahlc sinfulness of slaveholding is a doctrine of 
great practical value. At first view it might seem quite harmless ' 
to admit the innocency of some conceivable cases of slaveholding. 
In practice it is far otherwise. No instance can arise which does 
not involve principles, in the admission of which numerous other 
cases of slaveholding will find ample justification. Admitting in 
general terms, that enslaving men is not necessarily sinful, has a 
still worse tendency ; since few slaveholders will fail to find in it 
a covert from the accusations of conscience, and the frown of an 
indignant public sentiment. On the other hand, much is gained 
by establishing the broad principle asserted in this essay. It ena- 
bles us to make a direct attack on slavery itself, to strike at the 
vitals of the system, instead of leveling our artillery against in- 
cidental evils, which is more apt to give oflfence, and far less effec- 
tive. While we admit the general excellence and humanity of the 
masters, we can assert and urge the duty of immediate and uncon- 
ditional emancipation ; we can charge them with guilt for with- 
holding liberty from those to whom liberty is due ; we can arrest 
their consciences by showing the insufficiency of their kindness 
and kind intentions, to justify them ; we can administer reproof for 
delaying, even a day, to do justice to their slaves. While our doc- 
trine speaks to the hearts of slaveholders, with accusations of guilt, 
by asserting the duty and pre-eminent safety of immediate eman- 
cipation, in all cases ; it tables its charges against all abettors of 
the practice, against its apologists, against those who hire slaves 
of their masters, against all who sustain and patronize the institu- 
tion. We expect soon to realize the appropriate results of this 
doctrine, in the repentance of the better class of slaveholders, in 
restraining men from purchasing slaves on the pretence of impro- 
ving their condition, in abolishing the pernicious practice of hiring 
them ; in short, in the perfect overthrow and destruction of the 
system. May the God of the oppressed grant us speedily, the 
fruition of our hopes ! 



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